The present invention relates in general to holders that are mounted inside a garment bag and that hold the hooks of one or more garment hangers on which different items of clothing are hung, the garments being housed in their entirety within the garment bag. In particular, the present invention relates to an improved construction in a jointed clamp that can be mounted inside a garment bag.
The present invention is an improvement on jointed clamps used inside garment bags and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,220 reissued as Re 31,075; No. 4,363,388 issued Dec. 14, 1982, 5,590,765 issued Jan. 7, 1997, and 5,887,710 issued Mar. 30, 1999, all incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. In each of these patents, the jointed clamp grasps the hooks of the hangers and is mounted depending downwardly to an inside top portion of, and located entirely inside o, the garment bag. A similar jointed clamp that is a hanger lock and mounted on top of a garment bag so as to grasp the stems of hangers to keep them from falling within the garment bag is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,566,456 issued Mar. 2, 1971, incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. The present inventor is an inventor in each of these patents.
Garment bags have come into extensive use in recent years and are generally of the type having flexible walls and a cover with a closure means such as a zipper to provide an enclosed housing for garments. The bags are usually provided with means on the top thereof for suspending the bag while loading and unloading the same with garments of long lengths that are usually mounted on a hanger. The garment bag is provided with a clamp that receives and fixedly holds the hanger. Once loaded, the garment bag can be folded for more convenient transport or carried in an extended condition Examples of such garment bags, of which there are many, Garment bags are also disclosed in the following U.S. patents, each of which is also incorporated herein by reference: 3,958,675; 3,221,848; 2,862,586; 2,689,631; 2,671,706; and 2,606,636. These bags also provide examples of the various types of features available with such bags and examples of different mechanisms for retaining the clothes hangers inside the bag. Another example of a jointed clamp is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,414, incorporated herein by reference.
Each of the mechanisms for retaining the clothes hangers has various problems and defects. For reasons explained in the above cited U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,388, the clamp disclosed therein (hereinafter referred to as the xe2x80x9c388 clampxe2x80x9d) overcomes many of the problems of the prior art devices.
The 388 jointed clamp has been manufactured and used successfully in garment bags for over 15 years. Such clamps are comprised of an upper channel hinged portion rigidly mounted to the top of a garment bag, a lower channel hinged portion, and a hinge pin extending through a rear portion. Each channel had substantially parallel walls connected by a corresponding top or bottom. Seated in each respective channel is a resilient block of a yieidable material such as rubber. Each channel wall has a vertical slot adjacent the ends of the blocks to facilitate the turning of the terminal edges of the lateral walls to bite into the side surfaces of the blocks along the open faces, without distorting the alignment between the components of the clamp. This retains the block in the channel. Each block protrudes beyond the open faces of the channels and is further retained in its respective channel by being wedged between a rev post and a forward tab that has been bent inwardly from the corresponding bottom or top of the channel so as to bite into the ends of the corresponding resilient blocks. Obviously, the provision of side wails that can be squeezed into an inserted block requires e steps and costs in the manufacturing thereof
While generally such jointed clamps have very successfully accomplished their intended purposes, after a period of successful usage, some of the blocks have become loose and occasionally fall out of the channel, thereby rendering not only the jointed clamp unusable, but also the entire garment bag unusable.
Thus, a jointed clamp is needed in which there is a mechanism for retaining the block in its respective channel over many years of usage so that a minor component does not render the entire bag useless. Although the problem was reported to the inventor, the first difficulty was to establish the cause thereof. This was not easy because the problem did not present itself in newly manufactured joint clamps, and most worn clamps were not available for inspection. Thus, a lot of experimentation was done in order to try to simulate the problem of the block not being retained. Many different designs were attempted, including trying different materials, adding an additional rear tab to bite into the block, having different shaped channels, and redesigning the hinge coupling. Occasionally one design or another seemed to have solved the problem, but the solution often caused a significant increase in the cost of manufacturing the clamp. An inexpensive solution that worked was needed, but was difficult to find.
The present invention provides a solution to the aforementioned long felt, but unsolved need and the disadvantages of the prior art clamps. The solution is both simple in concept and implementation so that not only does the holding blocks remain retained with the corresponding channel throughout the life of the clothing bag, but the added cost is not significant with respect to the overall cost of the clamp. In fact if the savings of various other features which could be eliminated are considered, the implementation of the present invention actually reduces the manufacturing cost of the clamp.
The present invention is directed to a jointed clamp comprising an elongate, U-shaped upper channel, an elongate, U-shaped lower channel, and a hinge pin connecting a rear end of each channel to each other so that they can pivot with respect to each other. In one embodiment of the present invention, a clasp is mounted at a forward end thereof to a forward end section of the lower channel, and is capable of engaging the forward end section of the upper channel. In a more specific embodiment, the clasp includes a handle with a wire loop pivotally mounted thereon, the wire loop bang capable of fitting around the upper channel.. In all embodiments, an upper and lower resilient block is mounted in a corresponding channel and is retained therein by a transverse rivet located in the forward half of each block. A vertical stem or rod is mounted in and extends through and terminates beyond a rear section of each channel and limits the angular opening between the two channels with the result of keeping the rear sections of each block in close proximity to each other so that the rear section of one block retains the rear section of the other block in the channel. In addition, the vertical stem abuts the back end of each block so as to prevent fore and aft movement within the corresponding channel. The lower channel has a vertical tab that abuts the front end of the lower block. Thus, the blocks are retrained in each channel.
A jointed clamp according to the present invention has a single rivet per channel that is used to retain a block therein and eliminated the need for vertical slots in the walls of the channels that are necessary so that an inner section of the chapel walls can be turned into a seated block to forcibly retain it in the channel.
Other features, advantages and benefits of the present invention, are set forth in or obvious from the detailed description of the invention hereinbelow.